Paul Rupert is President of Washington, DC-based Rupert & Company. He combines forty years’ general management, consulting, coaching, training and research experience with expertise in the development of flexible leadership skills and online systems. He excels in aligning Senior Management commitments with business-beneficial flexibility initiatives. Paul pioneered the development of explicitly business-based approaches and tools for creating the flexible workplace and transforming traditional managers into flexible leaders. In his previous work as Associate Director of New Ways to Work and Flexibility Practice Leader of WFD Consulting, he directed national flexibility advocacy efforts and served a broad and distinguished client list of more than a hundred companies ranging from Aetna and AOL to Wal-Mart and Xerox. He pioneered challenging flexibility initiatives such as Phased and Partial Retirement and high yield approaches to Remote Work. Mr. Rupert speaks widely about organizational flexibility and is quoted regularly in the national media such as the Wall Street Journal, ABC World News, CBS News, NPR, Marketplace and Newsweek. He is a graduate of Stanford University.

Kelly Hughes practices primarily in the areas of labor and employment law. She represents management in the full range of issues related to the employment relationship.

Ms. Hughes handles the following matters:

• Handling discrimination and retaliation charges before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and states' deferral agencies, including both individual discrimination charges and threatened systemic actions. This may involve conducting witness interviews, representing management during mediation, preparing position statements, handling any ensuing investigation, and/or negotiating conciliation agreements with the EEOC and states' deferral agencies
• Handling wage and hour, discrimination, and retaliation complaints before the North Carolina Department of Labor
• Litigating claims arising under Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Age Discrimination In Employment Act, and other federal statutes and state laws
• Representing employers, fiduciaries, insurers, and third-party administrators in employee welfare benefit plan litigation in federal and state courts, including defending against plan participants’ and beneficiaries’ claims for benefits under ERISA
• Advising employers on all human resource issues, including hiring new employees and evaluating, disciplining, and terminating existing employees, managing difficult leaves of absence situations, executing reductions in force, and complying with disability accommodation and religious accommodation obligations
• Drafting and negotiating severance agreements, non-solicitation agreements, and non-competition agreements
• Drafting employee handbooks and employment policies
• Conducting management training, including EEO and anti-harassment/anti-discrimination training
• Directing employers on avoidance of employee claims

An experienced speaker, Ms. Hughes has lectured on a range of employment law subjects for organizations including The Employer's Association, the Association of Corporate Counsel, the Diversity Forum, and North Carolina Society for Human Resource Management, among others

Kyra Cavanaugh is president of Life Meets Work, a consulting firm that helps organizations implement and improve workplace flexibility. She provides companies that are striving to be "best-in-class" with an online member-based community and services that include coaching, consulting, and training. She's a nationally-recognized speaker on workplace flexibility, telecommuting and work/life issues, and the recipient of the 2011 Work-Life Rising Star Award by Alliance for Work-Life Progress.

Eric C. Peterson, MSOD is a Senior Consultant with Cook Ross Inc. He is a recognized facilitator and educator in the Diversity & Inclusion space with over 15 years of experience in Unconscious Bias, Diversity & Inclusion (D&I), Learning Strategies, and Organization Development. Eric is certified in the use of both the Predictive Index and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and is a graduate of the Facilitation Learning Partners Program of Healing the Heart of Diversity. He has been published in Profiles in Diversity Journal and Echelon Magazine, and has been sourced as a D&I expert by CNN, National Public Radio, USA Today, The Bloomberg Group, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times.

Dr. Edward E. Hubbard, President and CEO of Hubbard & Hubbard, Inc., an International Business Performance Consulting Corp. specializing in Business Improvement, Diversity Return on Investment (DROI®) Measurement/Analytics, and organizational development.  Author of more than 59 DEI ROI and Business-related books, Dr. Hubbard is an expert in Organizational Analysis, ROI Measurement, Strategic Planning, and more. Dr. Hubbard was an honoree at the Inaugural International Society of Diversity and Inclusion Professionals Living Legends of Diversity Award Ceremony in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico where he received the “Living Legends of Diversity Award” for creating the “Diversity ROI Analytics” and “Diversity Measurement Fields and their associated Disciplines” and is recognized globally as the creator of these unique sciences and fields of study. 

Dr. Hubbard received the “Excellence in Global Leadership Award” from the World HRD Congress (the highest individual professional award given), the 2017 Distinguished Alumni Award from The Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences, the Sentry Award from the U.S. Pentagon, and many others.

Dr. Hubbard serves on the Harvard Business Review, Diversity Executive Magazine and Strategic Diversity & Inclusion Management (SDIM) magazine Editorial Advisory Boards and serves on the Board of Directors for The Ohio State University African American Alumni Society. He also holds a Practitioner Certification and Master Practitioner Certification in Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), a Neuroscience discipline. Dr. Hubbard earned Bachelors, Masters Degrees from The Ohio State University and earned a Ph.D. with Honors in Business Administration.